Mae West: Melita as Mae

Starring Australian actress Melita Jurisic as the American icon MAE WEST, a new play “Arbus and West” is onstage in Melbourne until March 30th. Naturally, Mae would have stipulated that her name was placed first in the title. Let’s enjoy a spirited review by drama critic Cameron Woodhead. This is Part 1.
• • “Arbus and West mere mouthpieces for Sewell's 'ideas' play” • •
• • Cameron Woodhead wrote: Stephen Sewell's latest play imagines a meeting between two trailblazing and very different American women: photographer Diane Arbus and siren of stage and screen Mae West.
• • Cameron Woodhead wrote: It springs from their real-life encounter in the 1960s when Arbus was commissioned by Show Magazine to shoot West in her Ravenswood apartment in Los Angeles.

• • Cameron Woodhead wrote: It's a play of ideas that uses renowned artists — — who are driven by contrasting aesthetic philosophies, backgrounds and views on feminism — — as its springboard.
• • Cameron Woodhead wrote: In that sense the work it most resembles is John Logan's Red, a two-hander about abstract expressionist Mark Rothko and his apprentice, which regular theatregoers might have seen in 2012 in an MTC production starring Colin Friels as the famous painter.
• • Can you make the dead live onstage? • •  . . .
• • Photo: Melita Jurisic as Mae West.  Credit: Jeff Busby
• • To be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Sydney Morning Herald, stage review; published on Monday, 4 March 2019.
• • On Thursday, 20 March 1930 • •
• • The Thursday issue of The New York Times (on 20 March 1930) continued their coverage of the infamous "Pleasure Man" trial presided over by Judge Amedeo Bertini.
• • The trial is dramatized in the stage play “Courting Mae West.”
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Frank Wallace, vaude actor, insists Mae West is his wife, despite the fact that the case was once tossed out of court.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: “Yes, I wrote the story myself.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Daily Variety mentioned Mae West.
• • Paramount Pictures is back to straight films after three stage shows, leaves town again without flesh. Stage reaction favorable, but being laid aside for present in favor of special film features. House is bringing back “She Done Him Wrong” as a supporting attraction, banking on the increased Mae West b.o.  …
• • Source: Variety; published on Monday, 4 September 1933
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • • 
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — — 
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/

• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 14th anniversary • •  

• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fourteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,100 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4173rd blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Melita Jurisic onstage as Mae, 2019 • •
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